AMA: Rafael Shimunov, Jewish left activist, radio host

[u/rafternoon]

Hey Reddit and r/JewsOfConscience, I'm Rafael Shimunov.

I'm a Jewish left activist who is active with JVP, IfNotNow and JFREJ. I'm the co-host of Beyond The Pale: Radio’s Home for the Jewish Left on NY’s WBAI 99.5FM. I'm a creative activist and founder of ArtvWar, a mostly anonymous group who uses art to create cultural interventions. I also cofounded The Jewish Vote, an electoral project of JFREJ in NYC who helped elected leaders like Jamaal Bowman and many other progressives.

I arrived to the US with my parents as a HIAS child refugee from Soviet-dominated Uzbekistan. I'm a Bukharian Jew, one of Central Asia’s many minority ethnic groups who have largely settled in Queens NYC. You may have first found me when I went viral after Ellen DeGeneres’ lawyers tried to censor my criticism of her support of disgraced former President George Bush on Twitter. Or my installing an illegal exhibit in the Whitney Museum to protest its leader’s manufacturing of chemical explosives sold to Trump’s border patrol. If you were around during Trump's Muslim ban, you may have been one of the 12 million on my livestream during the JFK Airport protests against it, which I filmed from the airport me and my family arrived in as refugees.

I've also worked to successfully help organize with Queens residents against building an Amazon headquarters for their ties to ICE, militarization of police, racism, labor and small business abuse. I've worked professionally and personally supporting movements and orgs winning $15 minimum wage, going after the crime of Guantanamo Bay, Stop and Frisk, and more.

I grew up in the projects aka public housing. My parents did all the stereotypical immigrant jobs you can imagine until my father became an architect and my mother a nurse and I began to go from poverty to the middle class. My parents learned English watching Star Trek with me. That influenced me a lot. And my secret past is working in advertising. For the bad guys. Man that was bad. My not so secret and proud past was being a warehouse worker and bicycle mechanic for Toys R Us, where I learned more about life than almost anywhere.

Find me on X, BlueSky, Instagram.

And the radio show on WBAI 99.5FM NY, X and Instagram. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and a bunch of other apps.

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[u/ContentChecker]

Hi Rafael,

There's all sorts of crazy news about Trump's mass deportation schemes and whatnot.

I've read articles where police chiefs have said they would help immigrants and disobey Trump's orders.

Any insight into what activists are preparing to do about this? I ask with the wording 'preparing to do' because I know there are NGOs already working to oppose Trump policies. But I'm curious what, I suppose, the 'street-level' (not in any negative sense but the folks who are on the ground, putting their bodies out there) organization might look like?

Thanks!

[u/rafternoon → u/ContentChecker]

Was literally talking about this at work for months now. And so are others across many orgs.

I like to remind folks that when Obama won by one of the largest margins in history (Trumps is among the narrowest, even as he claims a mandate) the Republicans were able to thwart many of even his centrist actions across his entire tenure. And it was during that Democrat control groups like the Tea Party came along and pushed the GOP radically right. It's not exactly apples to apples but we have the potential to do the same within the system. However, I think we must build our movements and their resilience to not only push that, but to be there if that fails.

We build these movements by joining mutual aid to distribute coats and food, not tomorrow, now. By knowing all our neighbors so that the first time you knock on their door isn't when you need critical help, but when you need sugar. Joining or creating unions. Coops. By researching preparedness, and not the type that reenforces insularity and hoarding, but community and dividing up roles so you rely on each other.

We cannot predict the shape and form our power will need to take. But we can build our power. We can prepare people to be healthy, supported, resilient, informed, and specialized in things just by being there for each other now. It sounds cheesy as hell but making it your mission to know the neighbors you never speak to and build depth with, will save us.

Allowing dominant culture to continue to insulate us into our phones and filtered bubbles will make us weaker and weaker.

Am grateful for places like this that encourage to utilize both the power of online community and finding people like us, and also taking what we learn from each other to people outside the bubbles.

[u/ContentChecker → u/rafternoon]

Thanks Raf for that thoughtful answer!